Nokia Music Store update: it's broken!

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Well, to clarify: it’s broken for me. I reviewed the Nokia Music Store last week, based on a morning using the web-based store on my Windows Vista PC. The review was broadly positive, highlighting some of the niggles, but generally concluding that it was a decent start.

I’m not quite so impressed now. Several days use has thrown up some more serious problems. The Unlimited Streaming service is still hit’n’miss, with some albums seemingly playing in the Media Bar, but with no sound coming out of the speakers. Meanwhile, even songs I’ve downloaded seem to skip regularly when played using the Media Bar.

Although worse still, when I fired up Internet Explorer and went to the Music Store this morning, the Media Bar was nowhere to be seen. Now, despite uninstalling and reinstalling it, it’s still missing.

It’s hard for me to blame Nokia for all this with 100% certainty, in case my PC or Internet Explorer is up to something funny. But the fact is, I’m left paying £8 a month for a dodgy streaming service, which now won’t work at all, and I can’t buy any more songs, because the Media Bar has disappeared. Great.

Meanwhile, it’s emerged since my review that major label Warner Music Group is boycotting the store, due to concerns over copyrighted music appearing on the entirely separate Nokia MOSH user-generated content service. It’s not the best of starts, it’s fair to say, especially if you’re looking to take on the super-slick iTunes.

SOLUTION:
Check that you have not minimised the Nokia Media Bar. If you click the arrow in the middle of the bar, it minimizes it, and it may appear to be gone even though it can easily be opened again.

The Nokia Media Bar must be enabled as an add-on to work. In Internet Explorer, do the following:

Select Tools > Manage Add-Ons > Add-Ons that have been used by Internet Explorer.
Locate the two Windows Media Player plugins as well as Nokia Media Bar in the list and ensure that they are set to enabled at the bottom.
Nokia Media Bar can sometimes not work correctly if a faulty track is stuck. Delete your playlist and access the site again. To make your playlist visible, do the following:

Select Start > Run
Type “control folders”
Select View > Show Hidden Files and Folders
Unselect Hide protected operating system files/folders, and Hide extensions for known file types
To access the playlist, go to C:Documents and Settings, and select your PC username folder, and go to Local SettingsApplication DataOD2.
Delete all .dat and .wpl files in the folder. The next time you access Nokia Music Store, the Nokia Media Bar loads correctly.
If you are using the store behind a corporate network you may need to change the following settings Internet Explorer: